


The Benefit Of Hindsight

by Britpacker



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-03-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:05:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8064856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Sometimes it takes a fiasco to make you see what’s been in front of you all along.  Post ep 1.25 “Two Days & Two Nights”.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
> **Author's notes:** Standard disclaimers and confessions apply - not mine, and there's no beta to tell me when I'm waffling along!

It wasn't until he hit the doorchime that Commander Charles Tucker III actually realised what a dumb thing it was he'd decided to do just because he couldn't sit still. He was probably the last person in the quadrant Malcolm wanted to see in the next - oh, hundred and fifty years.

He'd been justified in pointing out that the Brit had been just as willing as he to follow their new friends into the club's basement; but by the same token, he was older, and the senior officer present. He should have been watching out for his younger friend, not leading him smack into the trap set by a pair of plug-ugly shape-shifters. It wasn't like he'd never heard of the Suliban. Chameleon tendencies were a hazard they both should have been smart enough to look out for.

"Trip." 

"Uh, hey, Malcolm." 

Okay, maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to say, sounding surprised to see the man whose quarters he'd just tapped on. However, considering said man was naked but for a strategically placed piece of terrycloth, droplets of water glistening on his creamy, barely-furred chest as they slithered south, Trip considered it a monumental piece of eloquence.

The twitch of a dark eyebrow suggested the Englishman was less impressed. "You get the smell of the booze off?" he tried, pleased to be rewarded with the faintest glimmer of a smile.

"Along with a couple of layers of skin, yes." Reed crossed his arms, which loosened the knot holding his towel and brought another few millimetres of perfectly-toned abdomen onto display. Tucker swallowed hard. 

Malcolm looked at the pack of beer his friend was clutching like a talisman, and the eyebrow went still higher. "That to mask the smell, or drink?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I mean, I figured I should bring a peace offering."

"Appreciated, but hardly necessary." With a rueful grin Reed guided his friend into his spartan personal space, giving him a cordial push toward the neat bunk. "I was just as earth-shatteringly imbecilic as you."

"'s not what you said in the basement."

Snatching up another towel to rub through his sodden hair until it stood in a Punk-like muddle of spikes and waves, Reed flashed the most apologetic version of his patented half-smile from under the fabric. "Yes, well. I'd got plastered on alien cocktails and been stun-gunned by an ugly alien thief instead of bonked brainless by an exotic bimbo. I wasn't in the best of tempers, all things considered. Don't wait for me - I'll only be a sec."

"'kay." As the younger man turned the knot securing his modesty slipped, giving Trip a tantalising glimpse of one firm, milk-white butt cheek before Reed dropped the sweats he'd been unfolding and seized his gaping protection instead. "No rush!"

He should have kept is mouth shut, Tucker decided. He sounded hoarse as a man gargling nails, and Malcolm wasn't going to miss a clue like that.

Was he?

When the Armoury Officer merely grunted and disappeared through the bathroom door he wasn't sure whether the cramping in his guts was relief or crushing disappointment. Hoshi had to be wrong. The man was as straight as the iron rod up his ass.

_Right. Which is why he wanted a couple of nights' casual sex with a hot_ female _alien babe, dumbo. Must've been seein' double when he thought that slim blond guy was worth checkin' out._

Gloomily he opened two bottles and took a healthy glug from the first, letting the sting of alcohol wash bile back down to coat the lead in his stomach. He'd come to apologise; to make things right with a friend who had every reason to be pissed as hell at him. His own unexpected, overpowering desire for more didn't matter. Just so long as Mal was still willing to share lunch and movie night, and the odd shore leave, being his friend.

"Trip?" Staring morosely at the floor, his broad shoulders hunched and a hangdog look of remorse marring his even features, Malcolm Reed had never seen his gregarious, optimistic colleague look so glum. "Beer that bad?"

"Beer's okay." He took another mighty swallow to refresh a mouth left dry by the sight of his dream man still flushed and spiky-haired, a tight black t-shirt tucked into dark grey sweats nicely outlining every sinewy muscle as Reed stretched to snag the second bottle from his desk before hurling himself into the single chair. "'m just feelin' a fool, that's all."

"You and me both, mate." Sucking at his beer bottle with relish, Malcolm allowed himself to slide into an un-officer-like slouch, his head tipped back as a small smile ghosted over his angular features. "Christ, those Risan cocktails must've been potent, or I'd have seen through that whole _subterranean gardens_ story like my Granny's old lace curtains! Some paranoid security type I am!"

"If I'd mentioned the crime stats you'd 've..."

"Refused to leave the ship without a full consignment of phase pistols?" Malcolm finished obligingly. 

Droplets of beer sprayed the cabin from Trip's nose. Shaking his head, the Brit sauntered over to pound his friend hard on the back as he heaved, broken fragments of laughter winding their way through his choking fit. "It did occur to me in the basement, but honestly I was too tipsy to have shot straight by then. We're a proper pair of wassocks, aren't we?"

"Huh?"

"Clowns. Chumps. Blinding halfwits led by our genitalia. The first shifty thing that has a pulse and shows the smallest degree of interest - _wham!_ Bye-bye, Starfleet's finest and good evening, dribbling, brains-in-the-knickers pubescent boys."

Tucker harrumphed into his drink. "Guess so. You think they were _shifty?_ "

"In hindsight - yes." He had relaxed his guard, and as soon as he got free of his ankle bonds Malcolm had set about the business of kicking himself for it. "If they were willing to buy your ridiculous tarradiddle about rotating the captaincy, for crying out loud... your gob doesn't half run away with you when you've had a few, Tucker."

"They _were_ real lookers - 'fore they turned into big bald alien guys, 'f course."

"Oh, I'm glad you thought to clarify that point, Commander."

"No need t' git sarcastic, Lieutenant. You were just as fast losin' interest as me."

"What a surprise." The tart tone left Reed's rich voice, replaced by an undertone of throaty mirth. "Contrary to my reputation on this ship I do _not_ get turned on having nasty-looking alien guns pointed at me: especially not by big bald bruisers who were rather tasty women three seconds earlier!"

"We screwed up, didn't we?"

Reed rolled his eyes theatrically. "And T'Pol questions his logic," he murmured.

"An' _miaow_ t' you too, Lieutenant."

"What is it you say about no ranks off duty, Commander?"

Trip snickered. "'kay, I'll give y' that one. 'Nother beer?"

"Getting plastered's what caused all our problems before, remember?"

"No shape-shiftin' aliens on Enterprise."

"Unless there's something Phlox isn't telling us." Giving up, Reed let out a bark of laughter as he popped open another bottle and collapsed at his friend's side. "Dear God, I'm glad they still use good old-fashioned glass bottles on Risa. Can you imagine the disapproving looks if the Captain and Hoshi had found us like that?"

"Hoshi'd have enjoyed the view."

"Sure of yourself, aren't you?" He was fighting a losing battle against a mammoth grin, bur Reeds were schooled not to surrender however insurmountable the odds. 

Tuckers, he noted absently, had that particular white flag up in two seconds flat. "Aww, c'mon, Mal. You an' me showin' off our assets? Hell, even Johnny'd be droolin' never mind Hosh!"

"I'm pretty sure Captain Archer saw you in your underwear while the rest of us were knocked out," Malcolm pointed out. "Not to mention, we all wear less in Decon."

"Yeah, but he didn't get t' check you out, and Johnny's too polite to ogle a guy in Decon."

The silence that followed his words crushed down hard enough to press him right through the deck plating which, Tucker decided, really needed strategic trap doors to drop through when his mouth broke Warp 6 that way. "I mean - heck, you're a mighty attractive man, Mal, and trust me; you got _nothin'_ to be ashamed of in the body department."

Embarrassment suited Malcolm; he'd thought it many times seeing the slow climb of pink up the elegant line of that alabaster neck, the colour peaking as it hit those chiselled cheekbones. Trip had never stopped to wonder what a full-body blush might look like on himself.

He was getting the distinct impression, as every blood vessel in his body reached boiling point, that it would not be a pretty sight. _Maybe if I ask Malcolm it'll distract him enough we can still be friends after._

_Or give me time to run before he can grab that weird dagger he's got hanging over his bed. And how_ him _is that?_

"That's, erm, very kind of you, Trip. I mean, I'm flattered, obviously."

Malcolm Reed was floundering. Babbling. He knew it. He simply couldn't stop.

"After all, you're awfully good-looking aren't you, and charming with it. You're the last person on the ship I'd expect to notice me."

"Well, consider yourself noticed." Later - maybe - he'd have serious words with the guy about confidence issues, but in the heat of the moment Trip's inner self-esteem coach chose to stick his head under a cushion and pretend he wasn't in the room. 

He licked his lips, watching in fascination as Malcolm mimicked the nervous gesture, the tip of his tongue sticking at the corner of his fine-drawn mouth. "That is - I think you're _awfully good-lookin'_ too. Matter of fact, you might be prettier than De'Ahn and Latia put together, even before they changed into great big bald bad guys."

From the corner of his lowered eyes he witnessed the faint flaring of nostrils before Malcolm's shaky exhale brushed against his skin. "Er, aren't you straight?" the brunet asked faintly. 

Interrogation techniques weren't part of the Engineering stream's curriculum at the Academy, but Tucker had picked up a few tips watching the expert strategist on Enterprise's senior staff at work. "Aren't you?" he countered, the thump of his racing heart loud enough to drown his innocent words. 

The near corner of Reed's mouth turned up. "I asked first."

"I'm the - no, I'm not gonna pull rank. Not with you, Mal."

Again he saw the tip of his neighbour's tongue make a deliberate circuit of that tempting mouth. "Nobody's ever called me that before. I like it."

The burst of warmth through his innards was, Tucker conceded, ridiculous. And he liked it enough to concede the big issue and answer the sixty four billion dollar question.

"I'm bi. And yeah, before you ask: I'm really, seriously attracted to you, if you're not completely freaked by the whole idea."

"I'm not freaked." He didn't look it as Reed raised his face to the taller man's, his lips all pinked and swollen from the small, nervous bites he had applied in the course of the last half-hour. "I've usually gone with women, but yes: I bat for both teams too."

He sucked in a breath, clasped both hands in his lap and met the summer-blue eyes of his best friend and superior officer direct. "And I'm _really, seriously_ attracted back. I simply never thought..."

"We gotta work on those self-esteem issues of yours." He was so like a small boy sometimes, that self-assured officer's mask melting away like the icy chill that could possess his clear grey eyes. The only thing to dissolve faster, Trip considered, was the mushy puddle in his chest that used to be his heart. Greatly daring, he captured one of the Englishman's hands and carried it slowly, giving the man time to back out, toward his lips. "You mind if I..."

"Please do."

Soft lips fluttered against his prickling skin, sending out shockwaves of sensation that reached way beyond what a Reed should consider appropriate. "If you'd mentioned that on Risa, we mightn't have ended up locked in a basement," he murmured, blush renewed by the huskiness of the glib remark. 

"If ah'd thought you'd go for it darlin', ah mighta done just that." The hand in his quivered with - Trip hoped - amusement. "But ah wouldn't want a shore-leave fuck with you, Malcolm. You're too important t' me for that."

It might be a diffident declaration in an accent so thickened with emotion as to require the UT's assistance, but Malcolm Reed had heard nothing sweeter in his life. "Ditto," he whispered, concentrating on the feeling of warmth soaking through his hand. "I only do casual sex with people I don't care if I'm never going to see again."

"Like an alien _bimbo_ on Risa?"

His mouth fought to twist into a smile but Reed discipline won out, leaving humour to peep out only through a blaze of pure blue through the Brit's expressive eyes. "Quite," he murmured.

"I'm glad that didn't work out."

"Ditto. Again." He turned his captive hand, lacing his fingers through the broad, sun-tinged ones of his best friend. "Although it _was_ rather embarrassing at the time."

"Hell, yeah!" Cocooned in fluffy disbelief, Trip blurted the first thing that flashed into his head. "Stuck in m' skivvies watchin' you squirmin' about in yours... Sorry if you thought I was turnin' my back on you, but..."

"I was bloody glad you did, considering the effect your arse in those tight knickers was having on me," Malcolm shot back. Immediately he looked scandalised. "Sorry. Probably oughtn't to have said that."

"Hey, I admitted t' oglin' you first." He felt giddy, and Tucker suspected his companion might just empathise. "Does this mean - I'm tryin' not to sound really dumb here Malcolm - we're talkin' about a relationship, right?"

He heard the younger man's careful inhale and tightened his grip on the graceful hand he still clasped like a lucky charm. "If you'd like us to be, I think we are, Mister Tucker," Reed replied, lifting a dazzled grey gaze to the blond's intent face in time to see it split by a smile bright as that lauded Risan sunrise they'd managed to miss. 

"I'd like, Mister Reed," he pledged, feeling the fingers linked with his clench tight. The Englishman's adam's apple bobbed.

"I've never had a relationship with a friend before," he said wonderingly, the beginnings of a smile forming in reply. "But then, I suppose I've never had a friend quite like you, either - and that's a compliment, by the way."

"Likewise." He couldn't stop himself, Tucker realised. He was stooping, close enough now to feel the warmth of Malcolm's breath fanning his face as the smaller man's eyes grew wide and oh, so dark. He hadn't moved that far, but...

_Oh._

Soft, malleable lips connected with his, and the thought was lost.

The first kiss was everything he had ever imagined; sweet, slow and shy, deepening as mutual confidence grew and the raw heat of desire swelled in their bellies. Malcolm tasted of beer, chocolate and something dark and rich that Trip knew instantly as his own magical, glorious self. He was nectar, and Tucker swore there and then he would never have enough of that special sweetness. 

"Oh!"

To his own ears Malcolm sounded like a Victorian virgin, but articulacy was beyond him in the dizzying first few moments, his mouth still tingling in and out from the feel of Trip Tucker's lips and cautiously probing tongue. On a shuddering sigh the Southerner brushed his glowing cheek.

"Sums it up for me," he agreed, wishing he could find the courage to speak above a whisper as Reed mimicked his gesture. "Wanna do it again?"

A strong arm looped around his neck, bringing his head down. For an instant he could feel Malcolm's unrestrained smile before something wet and supple tickled his own and he was lost all over again.

The second kiss was hotter, wilder than the first, tongues duelling as they searched the sensitive spots in each other's mouths, their hands roaming freely now the right to touch was assured. Surrendering his mouth entirely to the brunet's ardent exploration Trip found himself groggily wondering if he had ever been kissed with such concentrated focus in his life.

Somehow they wound up full-length on the Englishman's bunk, both men breathless and squirming, aroused beyond reason. "Darlin' we hafta stop," Trip moaned, thrusting against the hard ridge of Malcolm's erection pressing into his thigh. "I'm not gonna rush y'..."

"Nor I - oh, God! - you." Sparks of pleasure lanced through him, making getting off the body he'd dreamed of the hardest thing Malcolm Reed had ever done. Carefully he adjusted his sweats, his swollen lips puckering into the sweetest version of their half-smile under Tucker's approving stare. "It's only good form to finish a first date before falling into bed if one's serious about a relationship, isn't it?"

"I don't give a damn 'bout _good form_ ," Trip complained, clambering to a sitting position with his hands well clear of the demanding pressure in his lap. "I just don't want us stumblin' into something you'll regret in the mornin'. We're gonna do this right, Malcolm and yeah - call me old-fashioned, but that includes courtin' before we tear each other's clothes off."

If there was one word his mother used frequently (and with furious blushes as if it were something horribly taboo) that he had not expected to hear in Charles Tucker III's honey drawl, Reed acknowledged, it was that. "I've nothing against a bit of courting," he replied, the habitual sink of his heart that accompanied the other man's preparing to leave reversed by the swift kiss that was dropped against his brow. "Breakfast tomorrow?"

"With Hoshi an' Travis for chaperones?"

"Do you still have chaperones in the South? It sounds so archaic." That got him a snort and, laughing softly, Malcolm returned his new boyfriend's kiss. "Actually, it's the earliest I could think of without sounding over-eager by inviting you to take a romantic stroll to the armoury with me now."

"And only you'd think that could be romantic." The lieutenant's pale eyes were alight with a happiness that seemed to suffuse his entire face, and Trip could only imagine his own reflected it. Malcolm shrugged.

"Well, if I could find being tied up in a filthy alien basement erotic..." he drawled, barely swaying to take the blond's affectionate cuff to the shoulder. "I suppose I'm a hopeless case."

"Makes two of us, darlin'." The endearment rolled like the finest champagne around his mouth as, with obvious reluctance, Trip passed him at the door. "0730? And c'n I come pick you up?"

For the first time Malcolm allowed himself to contemplate the mile-wide sentimental streak his fantasy lover was bound to possess. "I'd like that," he said softly, not surprised to find his hand being carried once more to those succulent pink lips.

He was going to enjoy being squired by an old-fashioned Southern gentleman. He only hoped the formalities weren't going to go on too long.

Flopping back onto his disordered bed without bothering to straighten the corners he let a hand drift south to cup his stimulated shaft through fleecy fabric. Some things wouldn't wait for ever, after all.


End file.
